Ok I'm back and have problemsSo here's the lay out of the disk drives while in 7

And here is what it shows for VMW after I went through the Wizard to set it up

When I go to run it I get a warning about dual booting which I just skip over and then get this error and can't do anything but Abort

Now if I did the configuration steps correctly what it calls PhysicalDrive1 is what Windows has listed as Disk1.I also tried going to the Disk Manager and setting Disk 1 to Offline and got the same error.

How I created the XP on the 1TB was to use Acronis True Image WD Edition and clone the 320GB to the 1TB. I even booted to the 1TB to make sure it was ok and would work and it did.What did I do wrong?

I followed the link and read topic then followed that link and read that topic. Downloaded and ran LockDismount v0.3.0.0 same problemI had also previously while in DM right-clicked on Disk1 and selected Offline and tried again in VMW, same problem.I read in the first topic that someone used diskpart to take the drive offline and that worked for him. I have no idea what the command is to do that but if DM is doing the same thing with what I did then it seems pointless to try to do it from the command line.

Is there perhaps something in setting this up that I did wrong? I can run through that again and list exactly what I'm doing for each step and maybe something there is a miss.

And what is the command to use for diskpart to dismount the drive in question?Run VM as admin; ok that was something I wasn't doing and that I never saw ever mentioned. I'll try that and see what happens.

For the love of god someone just tell me what I need to do from start to finish even if there are steps in the creation of the virtual machine itself that need to be done.This is getting annoying as hell.

the instructions for WS 5.5 are still valid - only difference with WS 7 hosts nowadays is the need to set the disk offline with diskpart and the need to run WS as admin.

I would also disable UAC but some folks seem to like the anoying questions and account-restrictions that UAC sets up.

If you created the second hardware profile already this are the steps required:

1. log in using an admin account2. start a cmd via "run as admin"3. start diskpart - select the disk - make it the active object and then set it online4. start WS via "run as admin"5. when XP boots - select the second hardware profile

I see that you use the physical disk as IDE - that may not work - easiest config is to use it as Buslogic disk

Ok I finally got it to work.The problem I had was figuring out how to use diskpart. Giant pain in the ass, unless there are steps I'm missing to make it shorter.First use, list disk to figure out which drive number, then select <number>, then offline disk to make the selected disk offline.So is there a shorter way to do this or maybe even a bat file I can use that'll do this?

Something else that's new that came up this time.If you'll notice in my previous screen shot:Disk 0 = Win7Disk 1 = XP on 1TB drive as you suggested to try this out on firstDisk 2 = XP on 320GB the original XP drive

When I tried your suggestions just now they were all mixed up from that listing. Now they are:Disk 0 = XP on 320GBDisk 1 = Win7Disk 2 = XP on 1TBWhat could have cause that?Even more bizarre is that while back in the original XP they are in the same order as the screen shot.

I don't have any problems getting it to run with UAC turned on, it's annoying but then UAC normally annoying so that cancels that out.

So what I need is an easier way to take the drive offline. I also wouldn't mind knowing why using the Disk Management program to take it offline doesn't have the same effect that diskpart does.